Welcome to the Sustainable Minerals Insitute's Public Seminar presentation.
Attendance is in person or via Zoom
Speaker: Professor Arn Keeling
Abstract: While planning processes for tailings management and mine reclamation increasingly employ the language of environmental restoration and public engagement, these terms are used within the confines of state-led, neoliberal spaces of Western science and industry, and premised on linear notions of progress and improvement. Community perspectives on reclaiming land, cultural practices, governance structures and more-than-human relations is typically not articulated in mainstream reclamation or environmental assessment processes. To “open up” the discourses and processes of mine closure and reclamation planning requires their reorientation towards relational accountability and the co-production of technoscientific knowledge and environmental futures.
This presentation explores an experimental approach to mine closure planning and community participation that foregrounds the dialogue between technical and legal approaches to the mine and the knowledge and values of affected Indigenous communities. Located in the Inuit territory of Nunavik in the Canadian province of Quebec, the Glencore Raglan Mine is the site of a unique approach to mine closure planning that brings together technical experts, company officials, and Inuit community and government representatives in a sustained process of closure plan review. Reflecting on the first five years of the mine closure subcommittee’s activity, this presentation considers the challenges and opportunities of deep collaboration and exchange between companies and communities.
Bio: Prof Keeling is head of Geography at Memorial University, Newfoundland : As a settler-scholar, his research and publications focus on the historical and contemporary encounters of Indigenous communities in Northern Canada with large-scale resource developments. From 2008-2017, Arn was co-investigator on multi-site, multi-year funded projects examining abandoned mines in Northern Canada. He subsequently led a major funded project investigating the historical geography of pollution and contaminants in Northern Canada. Most recently, he has been part of several international research networks examining Indigenous engagements with mineral development, with a particular focus on mine closure and environmental legacies. Arn is also interested in historical-geographical approaches to environmental science, political ecology and environmental justice.